


Terrifying Domesticity

by ishipitsobad



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alpha Erik, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Babies, Domestic Fluff, Erik the Mafia Boss, Established Relationship, M/M, Mafia AU, Modern AU, Mpreg, Omega Charles, Pregnant Charles, VERY BLATANT MPREG, no powers, warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-09 07:51:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 19,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3241970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishipitsobad/pseuds/ishipitsobad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik is the most dangerous and notorious mafia boss around for miles, and yet the strangest things terrify him.</p><p>For example: his children, and his very pregnant mate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I found this in my CHERIK folder (yes, I have a folder for it), and it was actually a WIP because I was (still am) wild about the A/B/O Dynamics and had (still have) a fondness for mpreg!Charles. So I decided to post it and maybe one day I'll come back and maybe give it extra chapters or make it into an actual story with a backstory and plot and all that. WHO KNOWS I DON'T

Erik is thirty-eight years old, and in all his years he has faced off against the kind of life-threatening dangers that would make the most masculine Alphas piss in their pants. He’s seen the foulest, cruelest sides of mankind, and all that it implies; torture, imprisonment, emotional manipulation and all its kin are no strangers to Erik. Flesh wounds, shattered bones, punctured organs and dislocated joints have become as routine as brushing his teeth in the morning, although nowadays he tends to be the one inflicting the pain rather than playing the receiving end. There’s a sick, twisted sense of gratification in knowing that he’s in the position to hurt, as opposed to once being young and vulnerable to _being_ hurt. He won’t deny it if he’s called out on it, because honesty is the one trait Erik utterly refuses to lose to this depravity he calls his living.

While most Alphas his age are at varying levels of success in their levels, white collar workers or working dead end jobs, Erik is on a first name basis with the maître d’ _and_ the manager of the city’s most expensive and exclusive Hellfire club. He owns no less than fourteen tailored suits from the noblest and oldest of tailors that Europe has to offer, and owns various luxury properties across the globe, most recently having acquired a rather lovely _siheyuan_ in Beijing. His name inspires terror and fear into the residents of the city he’s come to make his base, and well it should: all his wealth has been funded by the blood and illegitimacy that stains his hands.

Getting to where he is now was no smooth and straight road—the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and Erik has never had any such thing in mind when he went up against the world. There was only a bloodlust fueled by a need to prove himself, which was borne of inherent Alpha instincts that demanded he mark out a territory of his own and defend it. As a poor boy hailing from Germany with a religion that many cast a dirty eye on and a mother who worked herself to the bone just keeping them alive, much less offering the option of schooling, there wasn’t very much hope for Erik when it came to legal means of making his mark on the world. So in his desperation, he’d turned to a madman named Sebastian Shaw, and let himself graduate from lowly pageboy to most favored protégé. Eighteen years from the day Shaw declared Erik a part of his faction, he murdered Shaw and took over his empire with an unrelenting iron fist.

He travelled the world, expanded his territory and gained the loyalty of those who were now his most trusted lieutenants. He crushed generations-old criminal syndicates within days, for the most inane reasons like finding their names ridiculous or not sharing their gaudy taste in clothing. He reaped the rewards of being cold-hearted, ruthless and cunning, enjoying the affluence that had been denied him as a youth and all it entailed: indulgence in a lavish lifestyle of five-star hotel suites, silk ties and a plethora of Omegas only too eager to occupy the seat at his side.

But Erik never lost himself to the decadence as the average Alpha would in his situation. He never forgot where he came from, or what it took for him to get there. The young boy with dirt on his face and ripped seams in his clothes still lived in him, only cloaked by a disguise of immaculate grooming and fine clothing. He would never forget the blood and filth that he’d stained his hands with in order to obtain his security and aaffluence, and once upon a time, Erik had nearly let the notion that he was dirty stop him from making the most pivotal acquisition of all—his happiness.

Erik is thirty-eight years old, a notorious mob boss who’s had his fair share of facing off the brutality that man seemed to cultivate with the aid of greed, and nothing terrifies him quite so much as the knowledge that when he walks through the front door of his home, his two oldest will aim straight for his knees. Instincts, less natural and more bred into him by Shaw’s vicious trainings, will demand that he defend himself, even against his own children. It takes every fiber of his being to resist, and to stay still and let the hurricane that is his two oldest rush at him like little human bullets with no sense of what normal greetings are.

At the age of four, Wanda and Pietro are considerable threats, to themselves if not to the people around them. As individuals, they’re formidable blackmailers and emotional manipulators. As twins… Erik’s lieutenants have sworn off babysititing duty, and that says a lot when they’re hardened criminals.

Their padding of baby fat is wearing off as they progress into toddlers, and that only makes their impact into Erik’s legs all the more painful for both of them. But even the discomfort isn’t enough to obscure the joy that permeates the foyer, along with the excited exclamations of: “ _VatiVatiVatiVatiVati!”_

Erik grins, and he gently disengages them from his legs so he can kneel down and draw them both into a proper hug. They smell like contentment: warm milk, laundry softener, and a faint hint of chocolate chip cookies (likely their afternoon snack). Pietro isn’t one who finds pleasure in staying still for very long, and before long he’s wiggling out of Erik’s arms to scale his back like a little monkey. Wanda, more Vati’s little girl, is happy to revel in the comfort of her Alpha father’s scent. They’re both energetic, which means they’ve just woken up from their afternoon nap not too long ago. And that means Charles—

Charles appears, no less graceful than a princess descending the stairs, emerging from the playroom whilst looking gloriously tousled, their present youngest on his hip: David is a placid, sweet one-year old with a fondness for soggy arrowroot biscuits imported from England every week and a patience for his older siblings that borderlines on saintly, cheerfully tolerating their roughousing and perpetual prodding at his chubby little cheeks. Erik, though he loves Wanda and Pietro no less, gives thanks that David was born with the calmness that his older siblings so apparently lack. He rarely cries at night, granting his parents the boon of sleeping through it and generally being a fuss-free baby.

It’s just as well, because Charles is just three months away from giving David the honor of being an older brother.

Erik frowns, and he takes Wanda’s hand while making sure Pietro won’t fall off his back with the other hand, closing the distance between himself and his mate with two swift strides. “You shouldn’t be carrying him.”

“I’m fine, Erik.” Charles yawns, going up on tiptoe to kiss Erik. Despite his exasperation, Erik kisses him back with all the affection that he’s been starving for all day. Charles smells of comfort: hot tea, soft sheets, petrichor and it’s all inlaid with his natural Omega musk, complete with the tang of ripe oranges by way of his gravidity.

“Give him here,” trusting Pietro not to topple off his back, he holds an arm out for David, and his little boy recognizes his Alpha father. David, dear, sweet David, goes willingly, little fists clenching and unclenching eagerly while he makes his delight known through squeals. Erik smiles at his son, heart warmed by his evident happiness. “Were you a good boy, _Schatz?”_

David takes the finger tickling his belly and begins to gum on it with a seriousness that belies his thirteen months of age by way of response.

“I trust your day was less taxing than mine?” Charles grimaces, but there’s a fondness in his eyes that even his lethargy can’t hide. Erik notices how his hand goes to press the small of his back as if to alleviate some pressure.

“Mm,” Erik says noncommitally, He leans forward, keeping David’s head against his collarbone, and scents Charles properly. His Omega shivers a little, and the tips of his ears go pink with pleasure of having his Alpha close by. “How are you feeling?”

“Besides the obvious exhaustion of looking after your demon spawn?” Charles arches an eyebrow. “I’m alright, I suppose. Your unborn hellion is going to be a soccer player—that much I can surmise from the way they’re kicking my bladder around.”

Running after two four year olds and caring for a one year old is hard enough as it is—throw in an unprecedented pregnancy that came about by way of a careless quickie in the backseat of Erik’s car and Charles is being run ragged.

“Go back to bed,” Erik kisses his temple, concern for his Omega making him leak more Alpha pheromones, leaving Charles pliant and less stubborn. He nuzzles at Erik’s neck, inhaling as much of it as he can, like it’s some kind of drug. Considering the effect it has, it might as well be.

“What about dinner?” Charles half-heartedly protests.

Erik turns to the twins. “How does pizza for dinner sound?”

“I want Hawaiian, but without the pineapple,” Wanda declares.

“I want the Carnivore’s Delight,” Pietro insists. “With extra pepperoni.”

“Buh,” David suggests.

Erik smiles and noses at David’s downy blonde hair. “How about we get both?”

The twins shriek their delight, and scramble off Erik so they can do a victory dance in the living room. Charles, on the other hand, glares at Erik.

“We have a pantry that’s stocked better than a three-star Michelin restaurant, and you have a pizza delivery on speed dial,” Charles grouses, unconsciously rubbing the swell of his belly. “Your mother would be horrified.”

“What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Erik says airily, though there’s a very real truth in what Charles is saying. Edie would twist his ear and give him a three hour lecture if she knew of the current state of affairs in her son’s home. She would probably throw in another hour to scold him for feeding his pregnant mate such terrible things.

He can tell Charles is tired when he doesn’t give a retort, instead rolling his eyes and heading for the sofa to position himself horizontally on it. The bump that is their latest addition to their brood is covered by a thick jumper, but not veiled by it. It’s prominent in a way that sets Erik’s blood on fire and makes his heart burn with pride. It’s a sign of Charles’ fertility, Erik’s virility, and their compatibility all at once.

He kneels by the sofa, David having lost interest in Erik’s finger and whining for his Omega father’s scent, and smooths the hair out of Charle’s cornflower blue eyes. Charles blinks up at him fondly, sinfully red lips twisting into a wry smile as he takes David and lets him settle in the crook of his elbow.

“You smell like blood,” Charles murmurs softly, David wriggling into a better position so his little nose is buried in his Omega father’s scent gland. “It’s not yours, is it?”

To Erik, the time when he had been clawing his way to the top of the food chain and fending off other mob bosses interested in his territory might as well have been in another life, when Charles and his family is so close at hand and the peace is only marred by the twins’ enthusiastic self-entertainment. But to Charles, who became a very adept nurse from taking care of Erik’s wounds after every fight, it was as close as yesterday.

“No,” Erik takes Charles free hand in both of his, pressing his lips to the smooth knuckles. “An envoy.”

Charles is no stranger to what Erik does for a living. As a matter of fact, he’s far too familiar with it for Erik’s comfort. He’s been kidnapped for leverage against him on a few occasions, and the treatment he received as a hostage resulted in the extremely prejudiced death of his captors. So Charles is well aware and much more knowledgeable about mob politics than the average person, and the exasperated look he gives Erik is a consequence of it.

“Erik,” he sighs. “The whole point of someone sending an envoy is for relatively peaceful negotiations, not for personal entertainment in the form of bloodshed.”

“Stryker made a few…non-negotiable demands,” Erik’s jaw muscle twitches at the recollection of exactly _who_ Stryker demanded in exchange for peace between the two mobs. If any beatnik Alpha on the street can tell that Charles is taken when he goes out with the kids, then William Stryker must be blind, deaf and unable to smell anything but his own dick.

Charles, thankfully, doesn’t try to guess what demands were made. Perhaps he knows, but just doesn’t want to further antagonize Erik by picking at a frayed nerve. He rests his hand against Erik’s cheek, thumb stroking his cheekbone in a slow, gentle rhythm. Parenthood and pregnancy has put a sort of soft sweetness in Charles, or perhaps enunciated it. When they met, Charles was an outrageously awkward but overly enthusiastic flirt and seemed to be the incarnation of naivete. His misplaced trust in the supposed goodness in everyone and anyone was a bone of contention for Erik, who was apparently too cynical for a man his age by Charles’ standards, and the main reason for their initial inability to stand being in the same room together. But eventually, pop culture slogans be damned, the saying that ‘opposites attract’ came into actuality between them. Erik courted Charles like an Alpha should court an Omega, even though their dates were secretive and always done in the shadow of darkness so Erik’s rivals would not notice Charles as a target. He offered wealth, luxury, grandeur…but it was the single promise of a forever that won him Charles’ heart, after weeks of contemplating his right to be at Charles’ side at all when his past should have denied him such joy.

A joy that’s made tangible in the man who lies on his couch now, in the three children that fill the house with laughter and another on the way, kicking at Erik’s palm from within Charles’ belly.

“You promised,” Charles smiles.

Erik smiles back, and this one is all quiet contentment and peace. “Forever.”

“No,” Charles snorts. “Pizza.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prologue to Charles and Erik's life together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all your lovely comments and kudos! This is for the overwhelming response to continue!

It should strike Erik (and anyone in his social circle) as alarming and foreboding that he feels most calm when he’s standing in a pool of blood belonging to the head of a gang that had gotten far too cocky for their worth. As he steps out of the mess and leaves the lower-ranked subordinates of his group to clean it up, he absently muses that a psychologist would have a field day with his issues.

  “Vaht next?” Azazel’s accent is both thick and vaguely Russian (but he denied any ancestry there, which left the Beta’s bloodline up for wagering), and as far as second-in-commands go, he’s proven to be the best and the most loyal.

  “I want the scum’s group crushed,” Erik said calmly, as if he were ordering coffee from a menu. “I have no use for drug-dealing opportunists who would sell their own sisters for a quick buck.”

  “Even if there is money?” Azazel hasn’t been _pushing_ the idea of getting into the drug cartel business per se, but he’s been leaving the door open where Erik would really rather lock it and forget about it entirely. Yes, it’s a lucrative sector, but it’s also illegal no matter how you look at it, and it creates a mess out of whoever’s peddling the junk. Erik prefers his subordinates in perfect working condition, thank you, and not to have government dogs tracking him for a blatant flout of the rules.

  “Even so,” Erik scowls, stepping out of the warehouse and into the sunlight. “Drugs ruin people, and ruined people makes for ruined business. I like my empire the way it is now, thank you very much.”

Azazel shrugs as if to say _your loss_ , but he wanders off to do Erik’s bidding nonetheless, whistling an incongruously cheerful tune. Once upon a time, his casual indifference would have irritated Erik, but now he just accepts it as the price for an otherwise efficient and effective second-in-command.

Alex is waiting outside with the car, and Erik tells him to drive straight back to the office.

* * *

Angel gives a cursory knock and doesn't wait for Erik's permission before strolling right in with a manila folder in one manicured hand. A cold reprimand is on the tip of Erik's tongue, but it immediately dissolves like candy floss when Angel holds out the folder and he sees the name embossed on it in black.

He grabs at it like a drowning man for a lifeline, and in some obscure way, there are similarities. The first thing that catches his eye as the contents are pulled out is a passport-sized photo, portraying brown hair carelessly pushed out of a face with eyes no less vivid in print than in real life. Even in the much-despaired-of passport photos, Charles Xavier still manages to look like he's auditioning for a clothing job.

A quick shuffle through the meager sheaf of papers turned in by Raven, one of his higher ranking subordinates with a flair for undercover work, sends a shudder of relief coursing down Erik's body. There's nothing untoward or even vaguely suspicious about Charles Xavier (although Raven points out in hot pink marker that he buys an unhealthy amount of tea for just one person, and seems to be absentminded enough to open the door to anyone without checking who's on the other side). He's clean, has no connections whatsoever to the underbelly of society that is Erik's domain.

That is not to say what Erik does for a living is strictly illegal: the front of running various companies in different industries is thick and solid enough, backed up by formal and legal papers to prove that they are legal establishments. Entertainment, investment, export/import... Erik's empire has its fingers in every industry, and every single one of them files annual tax returns without delay, which makes for an impenetrable cover when it comes to the dirtier side of their business.

The money that comes into Erik's pockets is perfectly untouchable by the law; the method through which he gained the profits, however, is a totally different story. Erik destroys rival syndicates and gangs by cornering them, turning their own "investors" and the market on them, running the value of whatever they have to offer down until they can no longer function on a day-to-day basis without incurring some kind of epic-scale crisis or drawing the attention of the police. Then he goes in for the kill, acquires whatever he finds profitable, and disposes of everything else. He makes sure to run things by the lawyers, just in case. Whatever else that happens that _can’t_ be run by the lawyers is collateral damage to be disposed of without a trace back to Erik.

Charles Xavier, on the other hand, is a biology professor at one of the top three local universities and on the tenure track. He holds two doctorates, stays in an apartment in one of the classier neighborhoods, and purportedly is the heir of the wealthy Xavier family. His nose is so clean, it practically sparkles.

Complete with the genuine warmth and endearing optimism Erik was personally acquainted with two nights ago, it's a wonder Charles has managed to stay an unbounded Omega for all his twenty-eight years of life.

Half an hour later, Raven walked in without knocking.

  "So have you read my--what the fuck?!"

Erik gazed up at her over the smoldering remains of the investigative report on Charles F. Xavier. "What is it?"

  "I spent three weeks on that!" Raven exclaimed, furious and indignant.

  "Which is exactly why I'm burning it," Erik drawled. "I can't let anyone else get their eyes on this. Or know that I have an interest in a civilian."

Raven arched an eyebrow. " 'Interest in a civilian.' Really, Erik? You can just say you've got the hots for him, you know. It's not like Azazel, Alex, Angel, Emma and a few dozen others in the group don't already know you've got it bad for this Omega. Have to admit, he is cute. But his taste in clothes suck ten ways to Hell."

Erik scowls. "And pray tell, exactly how they know of my...interests?"

  "You come back to the office after a two hour drinking break at a university pub and instead of issuing an order on whether or not to acquire the premises, you tell me to, and I quote: 'look into Charles Xavier's ass'. And then you proceed to regale me with details on how fabulous it looks in khaki slacks, when it technically shouldn't because it’s not a sexy clothing article, and how fantastic he smells--"

Erik cuts her off with a stony glare that masks the embarrassment licking at the back of his neck with smoldering flames. "That's quite enough. Don't you have something else you should be doing? Or what do I pay you for?"

  "Geez," Raven mutters as she gives a flimsy excuse of a mock salute and strides out. "No need to get your T-back in a twist.”

  “And stop gossiping!” Erik yells after her.

She yells something unintelligible back, and Erik leans back in his chair, closing his eyes and mourning the loss of the days when he used to be able to command fear and respect without having to raise his voice.

On his desk, the passport-sized photo of Charles Xavier in all his sapphire-eyes glory and crushed candy cane lips smiles back up at him.

* * *

Erik dislikes crowded places, because it means bodily contact and overwhelming scents for an Alpha with a sensitive nose. The faintest hint of anything can him too much of things he doesn’t want to remember when he’s got something else to look forward to, even though he cannot forget them when they make up memories that fuel his rage, the rage that motivates many of his actions.

Nevertheless, as Holywell Street ends to where Parks Road begins, Erik begins to feel his mood lighten while the weather, by comparison, darkens. He gives a discreet, casual 360, eyes scanning the crowd that mills around him, occasionally jostling him and muttering insults like “dumbass standing in the middle of fucking nowhere”. There are no faces that catch his eye, which means the coast is clear. His heart settles into an erratic thump; he could care less if this were any other situation, but this is different. He can’t afford to have people tailing him, not now as he ducks into the Freeman’s Bar and immediately picks out his target.

Slouching in a stiff-backed wooden chair that has seen better days, clearly halfway to drunk and determined on getting there, is a young man who can’t be older than twenty, or even legal enough to be drinking from that pint in his hand. His hair is a mess of dark waves that he now shoves out of his eyes with a absentminded hand, and his mouth is twisted into a wry smile as he elaborates on what is no doubt is another hypothesis he is planning to write. Erik would wince in sympathy for the young woman seated opposite him, who is most likely lost in a whirlpool of scientific jargon and incomprehensible theories.

He would, if not for the mounting jealousy that spurs him forward to tower over the seated pair, stance forbidding, expression intimidating.

Charles Xavier starts, reaction somewhat delayed by what is no doubt a result of copious amounts of cheap beer. His face is ruddy and his eyes—Erik always lost to them—are a little glazed over. “Erik.”

The name is slurred, and after a heartbeat of awkward silence, Charles gives Erik a dopey smile.

  “Erik,” Charles gestures at the young woman across from him, in a forest green peacoat and chestnut shoulder-length hair. Her face is narrow, and her smile is wide; but most importantly, a quick whiff betrays the fact that she’s a non-Dynamic. Erik relaxes an inch, but only an inch. “This is Moira MacTaggert. She studies… I’m sorry, what was it again, my dear?”

  “Criminal justice,” she provides helpfully, not missing a beat. She extends a slim hand towards Erik. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Erik.”

Erik weighs the pros and cons of shaking her hand for perhaps a little _too_ long, and she begins drops it, unease clouding her eyes.

  “Erik Lehnsherr,” he says smoothly, like there was never a pause at all as he grabs her hand to shake it.

  “Moira here was just playing audience to my newest supposition regarding the evolutionary changes in the DNA structure of the _homo Dynamica_ ,” Charles says cheerfully, completely oblivious to the awkward tension between the two. “Do drag over a chair, Erik. I’d love to hear your opinion on it.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Moira quickly stands up, offering Erik her chair. “I need to be on my way; it was nice seeing you again, Charles. Erik.”

She gives him a polite nod and quickly flees the scene, while Charles frowns after her.

  “Was I really that boring?” Charles asks as Erik settles into the seat Moira just vacated.

  “It takes a certain kind of humor and an advanced level of intellect to appreciate your conversation, Charles,” Erik chuckles, not unkindly. Now that the 3rd wheel has made itself scarce, he is more willing to be affable. It’s been slightly over a week since last he saw Charles, the first time he met the Omega at the very same pub and the two established an oddly intimate friendship over too many beers and too little common sense. Erik has to wonder if Charles upbringing was… _different_. Most Omegas would run in the other direction when faced with the prospect of an Alpha that practically bleeds ‘dangerous’ and smiles with too many teeth.

  “Perhaps,” Charles sighs, attention quickly shifting to his empty beer glass. “Or perhaps I didn’t imbibe enough alcohol to make myself more… intelligible.”

  “I think you’ve had a little too much,” Erik says pointedly, and he reaches across the small table to clasp the other man’s wrists. “I take it your presentation didn’t go very well, then?”

  “It went spectacularly,” Charles snorts, brow furrowing once more. “How it went down with my overwhelmingly sizeable audience of three was an entirely different matter.”

  “And I’m going to assume you’ll tell me about it one way or another…?”

  “Indeed,” Charles sighs once more, a gusty exhale that leaves his body crumpling forward as he puts his head in his hands. “Apparently, the very _idea_ that _homo Dynamis_ is the evolution and beginning of a superior species to _homo sapiens_ is blasphemy. I thought I phrased it in the least offensive way possible!”

  “They’re illiterate fools,” Erik takes Charles’ thin hands in both of his bigger, calloused ones. They’re slimmer and paler than Erik’s, and in his calloused, large ones they look almost frighteningly delicate. “Not to mention, very human.”

Charles gives Erik a weak smile. “They’re senior professors of Oxford, Erik. Genetic makeup notwithstanding, you can’t deny their qualifications.”

  “It’s their genetic makeup that makes their qualifications inferior to yours,” disregarding their surroundings, Erik presses a quick kiss to Charles’ knuckles.

  “That’s _your_ opinion,” Charles reminds him, oblivious to the sexual intimacy of the gesture, but a smile nudges at the corners of his mouth and warmth sparks in his belly. The lights are awfully bright for a pub, aren’t they? “We might be the superior race now, but don’t forget that one day, evolution will create another race that will no doubt hold the same opinion about us as you do now.”

  “So be it,” Erik shrugs. “I hold no grudges against the will of God. After all, it is what created us.”

Charles merely gives him a knowing smile, and says nothing.

He doesn’t have to.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not entirely sure where I'm gonna go with this but okay


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles is heavily pregnant with Pietro and Wanda, and Erik is being...Erik.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For mjtheneon's prompt: "Omfg this is too cute. I'm thinking maybe when charles is like eight and a half months pregnant erik starts going a little insane and trying to keep him in bed all day and feed him lots, then charles arguing, then erik accidently saying something like "but you're so huge! No!" And charles getting upset and attempting to storm out but then his water breaks idfk just pReGnAnCy CuTeNeSs"

“Charles!”

The brunette in question looks up from the cup of decaffeinated (he inwardly wept tears of misery) tea brewing on the kitchen counter, guilelessly oblivious to the reason behind his mate’s tone. “Yes, Erik?”

The Alpha storms into the kitchen, looking equal parts frantic and wrathful. “You’re not supposed to be out of bed! I could have gotten that for you! The doctor said—“

“The doctor can jolly well go and stuff his opinions somewhere the sun doesn’t shine, Erik,” Charles rolls his eyes, a little red from an excessive reaction to the lethal combination of hormones and tragic baby animal documentaries. One hand continues steeping the tea leaves, the other sneaks to the small of his back to ease the pressure caused by his cumbersome front.

But the small gesture indicating discomfort does not go unnoticed by his mate (little ever did these days, when it came to Charles, sometimes to the Omega’s exasperation), and Erik was closing the distance between them before Charles could blink. His more calloused and inured hands sought out the large swell of Charles’ belly, palms and fingers no longer big enough to cover the bump incubating their children.

 _Their children_. The thought never failed to fill Erik with a sense of overwhelming awe and delight. The very notion of having offspring had once seemed an unrealistic and impractical one, considering his line of work and his personality. Yet against all the odds and bad karma he’d racked up over the years of blood and crimes he’d stained his hands with, they were cradling the future he’d managed to create with Charles. Not one child, but _twins_.

He’d been terrified at first, of course, of messing up and somehow scarring his children for life. That they’d hate him, or fear him, or that Charles would come to his senses and see that Erik was not worth the danger his lifestyle implicated and take their children away.

But Charles had taken control of the situation with the patience and level-headedness he’d come to apply to every situation pertaining to Erik’s insecurities and ‘work’.

He calmly reassured Erik that their children would love him no less had he been an ordinary hourly-wage worker, or a serial axe murderer (“which I seriously hope you’re not, because that could be a deal-breaker in this relationship”). He confessed that he was just as frightened and lost regarding the prospect of being a parent.

“My own parents weren’t exactly… role models,” Charles admitted one night, after a cup of decaf tea for him and maybe two or six fingers of scotch for Erik, when the Alpha had nearly drowned himself in his own fears and doubts. “I don’t recall much about my father, other than his love of his work over his own family. He died when I was twelve. My mother always thought the way to my father’s heart was through her looks, and she spent more time playing wife than mother. After my father passed away, she decided that alcohol was a priority and I was a burden bound for boarding school in a different continent. The summer I turned fifteen, I came back to find that mother had married Kurt Marko, my father’s colleague.

Kurt was… a good stepfather. The best there could be, given the circumstances. He treated me better than his own son, always praising me and comparing me as the better child to his son. That gave Cain the motive to…vent some of his frustrations on me—“ Erik hissed, and Charles shushed him “—and Kurt was no fool to the bruises and broken bones. He beat Cain when he thought no one was in the house, but that only served to give Cain more of a reason to seek me out, for revenge.

So you see, my love, I don’t exactly have the best of role models to look to when it comes to parenting. But I didn’t turn out to be all that bad, did I?”

Erik then promptly declared that he had turned out to be absolutely perfect, and thereafter it was quite easy for Charles to bring the point home: so long as you made it very clear that you loved your children, that you wanted nothing but the best for them, for them to be happy and to be able to laugh everyday and not have to fear for their lives… then you would make a fantastic parent.

“Mistakes are made so that you learn never to repeat them,” Charles had kissed Erik’s temple, satisfied that the Alpha understood. “Be it our parents’, or our own. Our children will have to realize that we aren’t perfect at some point, but that whatever we do, it must be well-intentioned.”

And now, Charles wonders if he would rather have uncertain and apprehensive Erik, or an overprotective Alpha.

“I’m perfectly alright, love,” Charles sighs, patting his mate’s cheek. “No need to get so worried. And a little walking around will do me some good, after being laid up in bed for so long.”

“Absolutely not,” Erik says firmly. Charles inwardly groans, _here it comes_. “The doctor said first-time pregnancies are always the most risky ones, especially if it’s twins. You almost fainted last week, and that was just from a little outing—“ “You have to admit that Azazel had no business going about frightening the wits out of people by jumping up behind them out of nowhere” “—and your due date is just a week away!”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Erik,” Charles huffs, taking a sip of his tea and instinctively wrinkling his nose. “I feel absolutely fine, and you’ll be the first to know if anything’s wrong. It’s not like I’m busting out the door to go back to the campus and see if Kitty and Hank are managing the classes alright without me.”

Erik looks like he was going to have an apoplectic fit, and Charles immediately realised his error, cursing his loose tongue.

“Please tell me,” Erik grits his teeth, vision going red as he imagines his _heavily-pregnant_ , _vulnerable_ Omega travelling the forty miles to the university from which he was on child leave, and then back again. The fact that Charles cannot lever himself out of a seat without some struggling, or take a few steps without waddling honestly does nothing to alleviate his exasperated fury. “that you haven’t been doing what I think you just said you’ve been doing.”

“Well I can hardly take a step outside when you’ve got armed guards at the door 24/7, can I?” Charles snaps, clearly at the end of his tether. “Honestly, Erik! Do you even have a lick of considerationg for Alex and Darwin? Everytime I look, they’re outside our door! Isn’t it illegal to have your employees working around the clock without a break?”

Charles, always so considerate for others over himself. Erik mentally sighs. “They’re there for your safety, Charles. You know I wouldn’t trust anyone else—“

“Trust me!”

“You can’t even see your own feet!” Erik growls without thinking. “How are you supposed to walk down the stairs without falling?”

Right there and then, Erik knows he’s probably doomed himself, quite possibly for life. The air goes positively _frigid_ , and Charles eyes, usually a sweet and warm blue like a lake in summer, turns icy.

“What,” each word is perfectly enunciated, sharp as a whetted blade. Charles’ accent and Omega voice only makes the unspoken warning all the more intimidating. “did you just say?”

Erik gulps. If he hadn’t just implied that Charles was… _fat_ , he would be laughing at the Alpha’s petrified expression.

“I…”

“I’m going to Raven’s,” Charles says, tone brooking absolutely no argument. It’s the one he uses for his students when they’re insulting Charles’ secondary sex in the middle of a three-hour lecture and there’s more than half the material left to go. “And you’re not going to stop me.”

“But--!”

Charles levels a glare at him, and Erik shrinks back. If his subordinates knew just how much power his Omega wielded over him, Erik would never be allowed to live it down.

“Not. Another. Word,” Charles pronounces carefully, like he’s some sort of backward child.

He turns on his heel, cup of tea forgotten on the counter, and makes it out of the kitchen and into the hallway to grab his coat when he suddenly feels like something just went ‘pop’ inside him, and he looks down to see his pants soaked and a strange sort of fluid puddling around his feet.

“Oh, dear,” Charles says faintly, and Erik is out of the kitchen and by his side like shot.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” any other day, any other moment, those questions would have been brushed aside with some amused annoyance. But for once, Erik’s concern is actually justified.

“I think my waters have just broken,” Charles murmurs, and Erik stares at him blankly, like he just spoke Urdu.

“What?” Erik manages to say, and given his rather impressive fish-out-of-water impression, Charles would otherwise consider achieving speech a feat.

“The amniotic sac surrounding your children has just broken and emptied its liquid contents on the floor, which just so happens to be mahogany,” Charles says matter-of-factly.

The first contraction takes him by surprise, sneaking up on him like Azazel. But unlike Azazel, this one punches the air out of his lungs with the intensity of the pain it brings, wrapping around his abdomen like a boa constrictor and sinking its fangs into him without restraint. His knees buckle, but Erik quickly catches him and keeps him just barely on his feet.

The Alpha yells for Alex and Darwin to call the doctor, and when he turns to Charles, he looks like a mix of frantic and smug. He opens his mouth to speak, but Charles pre-empts him.

“If you say ‘I told you so’,” Charles warns, hissing as the contraction refuses to subside. “So help me, Erik, I will have you sleeping on the couch, _by yourself_ , for the rest of your life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's a little sloppy and rushed, I'm sorry!
> 
> If you want more chapters, leave me some prompts (because idk what to write!) and I'll do my best to satisfy!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For liquorish2003's prompt: "C I would love to see how Erik reacts to Charles actually having the kids. Birth and all. I think it would be hilarious." Both liquorish2003 and mjtheneon requested graphic birth (which I don't really think I delivered pun not actually intended), so WARNING!

  “Get away from him!”

Erik’s snarling rips through the already-fraught air of the room, Alpha pheromones being excessively pumped out of every pore of his body in response to the change in Charles’ scent, from expecting-Omega to Omega-in-labor. The pained whimpers Charles desperately tries to suppress is only worsening the instinctive urge to remove the foreign intruder in the room, preferably with extreme prejudice.

  “Eri—ggh!” Charles’ attempt to calm his overreacting mate is cut off by the abrupt arrival of yet another contraction, no less vindictive than the last and all the more vengeful for the five minute lapse.

Erik immediately returns to Charles’ side, Beta doctor forgotten as he half-kneels on the bed and clasps Charles’ hand in both of his. He reacts like a doll in tandem to his Omega’s pain, torso curved over Charles’ body as if he could physically shield him from it. “Breathe, Charles.”

  “You breathe,” Charles snorts, winded and exasperated. It’s true; Erik looks like he’s about to pass out—his face is paler than sheet, tinged a little green in forewarning of a serious upchucking.

  “Don’t talk,” Erik chides half-heartedly, using one hand to smooth the hair away from Charles’ sweaty forehead, and bending over to kiss Charles’ temple as the Omega endures the agony of delivering their children.

When the contraction passes and Charles’ body goes as limp with relief, the Beta doctor slowly approaches the bed once more, wary of Erik’s instincts now that he’s nearly had his head bitten off.

  “Ignore my mate, Dr. Blake,” Charles gives the blond Beta a weak smile, and looks up at his mate, who’s chest vibrates with a low, constant growling. “Erik, unless you’re volunteering to abandon your post as my stress ball—I mean, moral support and get down there to personally deliver our children, I strongly suggest you leave the poor doctor alone.”

Erik looks caught between the two options, but eventually relents when another contraction kicks in, making Charles almost arch up off the bed with a bitten-off scream. The doctor immediately gets to work, now that the Alpha’s attention is no longer focussed on offing him, snapping on latex gloves and checking Charles’ dilation. If it weren’t for the way Charles was keeping him at the head of the bed, Erik would have snapped the Beta’s neck for even _looking_ between his Omega’s legs, an intimate place solely meant for Erik alone.

  “You’re about five centimetres,” Dr. Blake declares, looking a little rueful. “I suggest you get comfortable. You won’t be going anywhere until you reach ten, at least.”

  “Good grief,” Charles groans, lightheaded and miserable. Knowing that the relief post-contraction is temporary, and will be followed shortly after but another in an interval that grows ever shorter truly does not allow the very _idea_ of comfortable to be made reality.

Erik doesn’t whine, but it’s a near thing. Alphas _don’t whine_ , it’s a sign of weakness. But where Charles is concerned, he’ll do just about anything if it means he’s happy and content. So he ends up having the upper half of Charles’ torso in his lap, one hand acting as the Omega’s stress ball, the other scruffing the back of his neck in the traditional Alpha means of providing comfort to his distressed mate. Touch has always been a big thing for Dynamics, be it for sexual purposes or just simple cuddling. Charles _adores_ having his scalp and neck touched, so Erik’s made it a point in recent months as the pregnancy progresses to give him regular rubs in those areas.

  “Erik, darling,” Charles wheezes, fending off the _n_ th contraction in what’s felt like an eternity, but has really only been two hours. “I think _I’m_ supposed to be the one breaking the bones in _your_ hand.”

Erik startles, looking down to realize that he is indeed on the verge of crushing the metacarpals of Charles’ right hand. He immediately lets go, and Charles uses the freed hand to pat Erik’s knee where it’s by his ear. The other hand has been constantly rubbing the heavy swell of his abdomen, as if to ease the pain. The fact that  _Erik_ is supposed to be the one with the nerves of steel (what with being a mafia don and all) is something Charles is never going to stop ribbing him for. This is going to be one for the books, and perhaps for Erik's colleagues when they're looking for some blackmail material for more days off, provided they pay Charles for the information in babysitting services. Perhaps being the mate of New York's most notorious gang leader has rubbed off on him some.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were the one having the babies instead of me,” Charles gives Erik a faint grin, a little too tight around the edges from a lethal mix of fatigue and discomfort to be as lighthearted as it’s intended to be.

Erik scowls at him. “I’m not panicking, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “Sure, sure,” Charles shrugs noncommitally. But the barely-there smirk on his face is promptly erased and resketched into a grimace as another contraction seizes his body. “Ohh…that’s different.”

Erik is all over him like white on rice, alarmed. “What? What’s wrong? Different how? Bad different?”

Dr. Blake is utterly indifferent to the Alpha’s consternation, peering between Charles’ legs and checking his dilation. “Ah. You’re just about ready. You can start pushing with the next one, Charles.”

  “What?” Erik blanches, blindly grabbing for Charles’ hand. “What do you mean?”

  “It means,” Charles gasps his way through the pain. “You’re about to meet your children, Erik. Now really, stop trying to break my hand, or you’ll have to sit outside.”

Desperate to avoid leaving his Omega alone, particularly in the face of such pain, Erik settles for bracing his back as he gets ready to push.

The series of events that follow next nearly have the Alpha on _his_ back, as he watches Charles bellow, cry, scream and yell both unintelligible words and all-too intelligible curses (mainly aimed at Erik’s penis, mostly about how he intends to castrate it in his sleep). He clenches his own fist under Charles’ grip to avoid causing the Omega undue harm, so tightly the knuckles turn white and in the back of his mind he absently notes something has just given way in a very uncomfortable manner. Charles’ face is pinched red in agony      , his hair matted down with sweat, _tears_ on his face, and then—

A wail belonging to someone distinctly tiny pierces the air like a bird’s cry at the break of dawn, new and bright and ever so beautiful to Erik’s ears. Charles collapses back against the Alpha, panting and exhausted.

  “Congrats, guys! It’s a little girl,” Dr. Blake announces, wiping off the slick and gore off the baby in his arms, and passing her to Charles.

This is the pivotal moment, when the Omega takes the newborn and both he and the Alpha scent her for the first time, and allowing the infant to imprint on their scents as well.

Charles is a little awkward at first, but he quickly adjusts and takes to it like a duck to water, settling her in his arms and ensuring he provides support to her head. He bows his head to scent her, and she sneezes.

  “Hello, darling,” Charles murmurs against her hot forehead, wrinkled as it is in a semblance of a frown (that bears startling likeness to her Alpha sire’s). Erik peers over his shoulder, too afraid to touch something so fragile, so precious. “Erik, stop hiding behind me and meet your daughter.”

  “But—“ Charles shoots him a look, and Erik immediately leans over to do as his Omega says, leery of inciting his Omega’s wrath.

The little girl has a head of downy, soft auburn curls dusting her scalp, and her eyes are squeezed shut as if thinking ‘maybe if I ignore this strange world long enough, it’ll go away’. And when Erik scents her, he smells the promise of something new, something like pliable rising dough, filled with potential and possibilities. The instinct in his hindbrain has developed from protect-Omega to protect-Omega-and-children at the speed of light.

The little girl seems to find their scents just as entrancing, making loud snuffling noises when Charles lifts her up so her nose is near Erik’s scent gland and his.

Now that they’ve established that she’s their daughter, and they’re her parents, Erik feels brave enough to stroke her warm cheek with one feather-light fingertip.

  “Wanda, like we agreed?” Charles’ voice is quiet, reverent. They’d decided on the names weeks ago, when Erik was restless and Charles was frustrated by Erik’s overbearing urge to keep his Omega close.

  “Wanda,” Erik agrees, just as softly.

  “Might want to hold on to her real tight now,” Dr. Blake warns. “Don’t forget, she’s still bound to be an older sister.”

  “I’m not looking forward to doing all that again,” Charles groans, but tightens his grip on Wanda.

  “I’ve got you,” Erik kisses Charles’ temple, and braces his back while keeping one hand wrapped under the arm carrying their daughter. Now that he knows this isn’t going to kill Charles, that the agony physically endured by Charles and emotionally by Erik is worth it, he’s not so prone to fear. “You can do this.”

  “I know I can,” Charles says testily as the contraction builds up like a tsunami striking the shores of his consciousness. “I’m more worried about _you_. I think you just broke your own hand.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't really feel like I satisfied the prompt but...
> 
> Hm. You can leave me prompts in my inbox, but my skills might not be up to par.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sex and more mpreg in this chapter! (timeline: sometime after David is born)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Aimee94's prompt: "I think I would like to read the moment they found out Charles is pregnant again after David, something like Charles being sick for a while but refusing to see a doctor because "he's just fine, it's just a bug", but then he sees Erik freaking out because he's sick and agrees to go to the doctor to find that "Oops, I'm pregnant again" and Erik freaks out again because oh wow, they are going to have another baby :p"
> 
> Sorry, I tweaked it a bit. Also, I'll definitely do the second half of your prompt, don't you worry (too lovely an idea to pass up).
> 
> And also simultaneously, inadvertently but serendipitously for @lorraine98 's prompt: "Can you do a sex scene especially the first time both do so?
> 
> If you can't, then a post sex scene"
> 
> NOt quite what you're expecting, however.

Roughly six months from the day Charles gives birth to the latest addition to their brood, sweet David and declares Erik is the equivalent of an eunuch until Wanda and Pietro are in college, he finds himself enjoying a bout of unprotected (albeit 100% consensual, seeing as whether or not Charles actually seduced Erik in the first place is debatable), monkey sex in the backseat of a limousine.

He’s not really sure about the _how_ and _why_ , but the driver’s partition is up and protecting Charles’ modesty, and Erik’s cock is hot and huge in his ass, ramming his prostrate on every upstroke while Charles bounces in his lap all too eagerly. Erik’s hands are everywhere on Charles’ naked body (again, the _how_ is the question, but it doesn’t beg answering at the moment, not when this is the first time they’re having sex in _weeks_ ; squeezing in quickies between three-and-a-half year old twins and a six-month old baby is like trying to run up the Himalayas in twelve inch stilettos with the whole world watching you), and they’re touching all his erogenous zones with the skill of one who knows exactly how to wring pleasure from his body.

  “Fuck, Erik!” Charles gasps, dropping his forehead to Erik’s shoulder, nails scoring lines down his mate’s back as his Alpha relentlessly drives him towards that beautiful edge of an orgasm. There’s a wet, pornographic noise from the way Erik’s balls slap against Charles’ ass every time his cock is fully sheathed inside the Omega, and with Erik whispering dirty talk into his ear, tweaking one over-sensitized and leaking nipple, striking his prostrate dead-on each time without fail…he topples headfirst over the edge and into the blissful abyss of ecstasy.

His mind is floating somewhere far, far above the clouds, possibly beyond this galaxy, detached from his shuddering body stained in his own cum. He’s utterly limp in Erik’s arms, breathing hard and feeling like—

  “Oh, _Scheiße_ ,” Erik curses, dragging Charles back down to earth. Rather rudely, he might add. His Alpha better have a bloody good excuse for interrupting the lovely haze of the first orgasm he’s had in ages.

  “What is it, Erik?” Charles doesn’t bother hiding the annoyance in his voice.

Erik swallows thickly, and makes a noise that sounds oddly like he’s choking, hands freezing where they are on Charles’ back.

That’s when Charles realizes his Alpha just knotted him, having been unable to pull out in time.

For fuck’s sake.          

* * *

  “I’m _fine_ , Erik,” Charles doesn’t snarl at Erik, but it’s a damn near thing.

The Alpha continues to hover behind him anyway, watching him worriedly as he brushes the sour taste from his mouth. It’s hard to really be mad at him when he’s still rumpled with sleep, the auburn hair he shares with his daughter sticking up every which way, scruff on his jaw and their youngest in his arms. It really helps that he’s wearing nothing but a hastily thrown on pair of sweatpants that clearly belong to Charles.

David had woken up crying for a diaper change, and Charles only made it halfway to their youngest son’s nursery before having to make a detour and heave his guts out into the porcelain throne. He’s glad that the twins sleep in the room at the far end of the hall; the last thing he needs right now is for the entire family to be up at four in the morning, hovering over him.

  “People who are fine don’t vomit for no reason, Charles,” Erik’s been trying this new thing called ‘patience’ and ‘subtlety’ since Charles nearly ripped his dick off when he was giving birth to David. So far, it’s been nothing but annoying, since _Charles_ is supposed to be the rationalizing and considerate one, while Erik usually just cuts straight to the chase, casualties of tactlessness be damned.

  “It’s probably just a stomach bug,” Charles shrugs, wiping his mouth and reaching for David, who coos as he’s handed over to his Omega parent. The little boy burrows into Charles, rubbing his cheek against his shirt in the most adorable way. “Maybe one of the kids at the daycare fell sick, and Wanda and Pietro brought it back with them.”

The look Erik gives him is dubious, and even he can’t help feeling unconvinced by his own reasoning. But then David is keening to be fed, and the matter is temporarily set aside.

Until the next morning.

He’s just kissed the twins goodbye, extracting the promise of good behavior (broken on an hourly basis by either one, if not both) and exchanged a much more passionate sort of kiss with his mate, who’s dropping them off at the daycare before heading to the office. Then he’s stumbling blindly towards the kitchen sink, lightheaded with nausea and spots blooming across his vision, while breakfast makes a reappearance in a semi-digested state.

He can hear the twins crying, Erik simultaneously trying to comfort them while worrying about Charles, asking if he’s okay, if he’s alright. Wanda and Pietro look terrified, and with tear-stained faces they ask if Daddy is going to die, a notion Erik brushes aside with an expression that borders on bewilderment. He promises them that Daddy is going to be just fine, once he’s gone to the doctor’s ( _not bloody likely,_ Charles thinks. He’s got an afternoon lecture, during which Raven’s promised to babysit David, and then he’s got tea with Moira, whom he hasn’t seen since before he took child leave), and the twins are handed over to Azazel to be delivered to daycare.

  “I don’t care what you say,” brash and single-minded Erik makes an unwelcome return, rubbing Charles’ back as the Omega dry heaves. “I’m taking you to the doctor’s, and you’re cancelling whatever appointments you have today. You’re going to rest and take time to recover, or you’ll frighten the children.”

It’s sneaky of him to use the babies as leverage, but when Charles thinks of how scared the twins must have been, seeing their Omega father like that…

  “Fine,” Charles slumps back against Erik, pale and suddenly weary. “But let me call Raven in to babysit David first.”

Raven shows up in less than fifteen minutes, pronounces Charles to look like ‘absolute shit’, and proceeds to perform her idea of ‘babysitting’. It consists of overstimulating David with too much fun, television, toys (Charles suspects caffeine to be in the mix), but Raven’s version of ‘babysitting’ is still vastly preferable to Azazel’s or Angel’s. The former thinks babies are self-sufficient and capable of metabolizing vodka, while the latter thinks babies should be held at arm’s length and not an inch closer. He hasn’t had the opportunity to put Darwin on trial yet (whom he suspects would make an excellent babysitter, what with his seemingly bottomless well of patience), and he’d rather kill David himself than let him suffer at the hands of the likes of Emma. Alex is much too hotheaded, and Janos is… well, never around to even be asked.

  “He’ll want a nap around one, after his lunchtime bottle,” Charles instructs. “He won’t go down without his stuffed duck, so you’d best have that on hand.”

  “Relax, Charles,” Raven rolls her eyes, David lying sprawled on his back on the carpet at her feet. He stares up at everyone with Charles’ eyes, and proceeds to entertain himself by making bubbles with his own spit, utterly fascinated by the popping. “It’s not the first time I’m babysitting your spawn.”

  “It’s the first time you’re starting mid-morning,” Charles frets as Erik bundles him up in a coat he really doesn’t need (it’s eighty degrees out, _at least_ ). “I don’t want his routine messed up.”

  “It’s just one day,” Raven snorts. “It’s not like he’ll remember. Will you, sprog?”

She gently nudges at David with a toe, and as if on cue, he bursts into peals of laughter. “That’s right, we got things handled.”

  “Come on, Charles,” Erik urges. At this rate, he can forget about going to work on time today. Or perhaps even at all.

Raven waves them off, with David still gurgling on the carpet. Alex and Darwin follow them down to the car as usual, where Erik reminds them to guard the apartment ad it’s current residents with their life (“there’s no need for such extremity,” Charles protests). They nod affirmative, and Darwin tells Charles to get well soon, or Erik would be twice as cranky as he usually was. That makes Charles laugh, and the Alpha growl.

The ride to the doctor’s is fairly short; Dr. Blake has been made the family doctor since he oversaw Charles’ first pregnancy and the delivery. As far as doctors go, Erik has to admit he’s qualified, doesn’t put a toe out of line, and is loyal. He has a strict patient-confidentiality policy that wouldn’t be broken at gunpoint, and he never makes Charles uncomfortable.

  “Vomiting, nausea…” Dr. Blake notes down Charles’ symptoms, oblivious to the tense Alpha in the room that’s vibrating at his patient’s shoulder. “Any pains anywhere? In the stomach region? Fever?”

  “Nothing,” Charles shakes his head.

  “You’ve been running a little hotter recently,” Erik points out.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” Charles says wryly.

Dr. Blake smiles, and refers back to the notes. “Have you been sexually active recently? I know you guys have sworn off kids till your oldest are in college…”

Erik cringes at the memory of how Charles had obtained that particular vow out of him.

  “Yes,” Charles has long since gotten over feeling embarrassed about sharing the details of his sex life with Dr. Blake. The man has been between his legs and watched him push out three babies; his sex life is peanuts in comparison.

  “How recently?”

  “About a few weeks ago?”

  “Unprotected?”

Charles nods, grim realization settling into the pit of his stomach even before the good doctor confirms it.

  “I’ll need to do a urine test and maybe a blood test to confirm it, but I'd place a solid bet that you’re pregnant again,” Dr. Blake looks up from his notes and peers at them, looking a little wary.

He’s right to be.

The room goes very still, and Charles thinks: _again?_ while Erik is just petrified, the equivalent of a statue carved from marble, only with a less serene expression. He's doing his rendition of Edvard Munch's 'The Scream'.

  “Pregnant,” Charles murmurs, and sighs. “ _Again_.”

Erik has the strongest inexplicable urge to invest in a groin guard when Charles levels a _look_ at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm afraid this was a little stilted (I'll be honest: I'm writing this at 1am, when I have to be up at 6 for an 8am class, so I'm rushing)
> 
> Leave a prompt in my inbox, if you'd like!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For zeibaneiba's prompt: "Awesome! I would love to see the first time Erik's work people meet Charles!"
> 
> and simultaneously ThinkToThought's: "may i request Erik first telling Charles what he does for a living?"

In Erik’s office, there is actually a whiteboard on one of the walls in the lounge, dedicated to him. In a black permanent marker, someone has split the white space into two columns, and they’re headed with the most inane, ridiculous things Erik has ever heard of: “Pre-Charles” and “Post-Charles”.

Under those two headers are bullet points listing everything about Erik that happened… _pre-Charles_ and _post-Charles_. On more than one occasion has Erik threatened (and proceeded to) to trash the thing, but it reappears like some kind of annoying pop-up ad. He’s scowled at it, demanded to know who was behind it, and even protested the things listed on it, but no matter how much of either he does, it remains there with an ever-growing list.

* * *

  “…rik? _Erik_!”

The Alpha in question startles so badly, he drops the to-go cup of coffee in his hands and it splatters all over the hem of his tailored pants and Italian leather shoes. He hisses in shock and pain, jerking away from the puddle of still-steaming brown liquid on the sidewalk, earning some dirty looks from pedestrians who are hurrying to be somewhere, to go someplace.

  “I’m so sorry,” Charles is genuinely contrite, offering napkins and concerned apologies. “I didn’t realize you were that far away.”

  “No—ugh,” Erik grimaces at the state of his pants, which are now beyond the efforts of anyone but the drycleaners. They have their job cut out for them. “It’s my fault. I wasn’t paying attention. That was rude.”

  “It was,” Charles smiles ruefully. “But I trust you were thinking of something that takes precedence over my complaints of how my school lacks a proper sexual education class for _homo Dyanmis_.”

Nothing could ever take precedence over Charles, is what Erik wants to say, but then Charles would probe, and if he did, Erik would end up telling him that he’d been thinking about that snivelling sycophant of a drug-dealer Damien Voletz, who had violated his territory last night when he started peddling drugs on the doorstep Hellfire Club. The nerve of the man is shocking and repulsive, and Erik is undecided as to whether he should shoot the man in the face or slice the webbings between all his fingers and toes _before_ killing him.

  “It’s nothing,” Erik reassures Charles. “I just… haven’t been sleeping very well, of late.”

Which isn’t entirely a lie: between the end of the financial quarter (which means scrambling to cover up any inexplicable profits in the financial statements) and “pining” over Charles (Raven’s words), Erik hasn’t had had much time to sleep. Not to mention being shortstaffed; since he started formally courting Charles (“why can’t you just call it ‘dating’, Erik? Really,” Charles had shaken his head, amused), he’d put a 24/7 protection detail on Charles, which meant his employee headcount was permanently down by two. They were to report in hourly, and if ever anything was suspicious.

  “That’s not very good for your health,” Charles frowned, concerned. His gaze is a feverishly bright blue that scratches at Erik’s conscience, and makes him want to confess his every misdeed to the Omega. “What’s wrong? Is it your work?”

Erik’s shoulders tense the slightest bit when Charles mentions his occupation. He’s just passed his career off as a ‘simple businessman’, when the truth is staggeringly incongruous. Charles had accepted it at face value, a little wrinkle of bemusement between his brows, but never otherwise questioned it.

  “Sort of,” Erik hedges. “But my work is boring. I’d really rather talk about yours.”

Charles frowns again, and this time it’s not out of concern. He doesn’t _say_ anything either, and the air between them is a little stiff and the conversation mildly stilted as they continue to walk towards the campus where Charles’ teaches.

* * *

Charles wonders if Erik isn’t real.

Of course, the Alpha himself is corporeal, of course, but recently Charles has been given reason to think that everything else about him is just an elaborate lie.

There is the fact that Erik is too good to be true: he’s devilishly handsome (though on the one occasion when Moira glimpsed him escorting Charles into the office, she’d claimed that he looked like the mastermind villain in some thriller crime film), he’s clearly got his life in order (the Gieves & Hawkes bespoke tailored suits speaks volumes), and he’s genuinely interested in Charles as a person, not just as an Omega.

He understands what Charles is talking about, be it on the most abstract topics. He might not share the same peaceful opinion on their kind living in harmony with _homo Sapiens_ , but that only made their conversations all the more enlightening and lively. He shares the same interests in theatre, in books, in chess. He dresses neatly no matter the occasion, smells like what a real Alpha should smell like (woodsmoke, fine scotch, and an arousingly appealing muskiness), never makes stereotypical insults or reproaches regarding Charles’ secondary sex.

He’s too good to be true, and of late Charles has started to think that saying is becoming unfortunately literal in this situation. It prompts him to think about what would be a dealbreaker for their budding relationship? So far, this is the list:

  *       Erik two-timing him
  *       Erik having a small dick (Charles internally cringes at his own shallowness, but there are just some things that can’t be compromised on)
  *       Erik being a closeted psycopathic serial killer
  *       Erik being a conman, whose real intentions is really just to cheat Charles of his inheritance, break his heart, and abscond with his real Omega partner (this may or may not be based off a past relationship, but nobody really needs to know about that)



He’s broached the topic of Erik’s employment before, of course: no regular, ‘simple businessman’ Alpha could afford so many tailored suits, or custom-made Bruno Maglis, or arrive to pick Charles up for dates in a Bentley with a _chauffeur_. Charles’ life growing up was no hardship, certainly, but ‘simple businessmen’ simply did not have access to such luxury on this scale. His own father and stepfather were renowned nuclear researchers in an internationally acclaimed scientific facility. He himself had a long pedigree: his father was Brian Xavier, who was the last Alpha of the Graymalkins, a lineage that had made its wealth in business, not ‘fiddling with beakers and test tubes’ as his grandfather used to say. In defiance of their expectations, Brian Xavier not only made a career in science, but also married the daughter of the noveau riche Xaviers and took on his wife’s family name. For all that Charles’ paternal grandparents seethed and fumed and raged, they could not write Brian out of the will, for he was their only son and there were no other living relatives to pass on the estate to.

So Charles was the heir of the Graymalkin Manor in Westchester, and all the trust funds and money that had been passed on through the Graymalkin lineage as well as the remainder of the Xavier wealth (it had been largely decimated by Sharon Xavier’s drinking habits after the death of her first husband). He was no stranger to the luxury and affluence, having grown up in it and been trotted around the upper stratas of society like some kind of show pony trussed up in a suit as a child.

But _Erik_ was not of the traditional wealth. He was not noveau riche, either; a painstaking trip to the gentlemen’s club in the more exclusive areas of town had revealed that ‘Erik Lehnsherr’ was not a name that had been circulating around at all. The wealth Erik flaunted had eluded the ears and wagging tongues of the rich; this didn’t add up.

Erik had always shrugged off, evaded, changed topics and sidestepped Charles casual inquiries about the nature of his work (albeit with great skill; Charles always wound up getting distracted and sidetracked, much to his frustration). If he really wanted to make Charles his mate, as he’d stated as his intention when they’d first started dating (or ‘courting’), he would have to come clean about everything.

He knows he shouldn’t invade people’s privacy, or be creepy and look up the details of their life on the internet, but Charles cannot handle his potential mates hiding skeletons in the closet. Not again.

* * *

He’s going to be late.

Erik glowers at the stack of papers that need to be signed off before the auditors collect it at three this afternoon. He’d meticulously arranged to have lunch with Charles, intending to drop by his office at the campus unannounced and oozing ‘I was in the area’ casualness, despite having planned this since the last time they’d met up two weeks ago and put alerted Alex and Darwin to be on guard for any snooping minions from the rival gangs. He had thought about sweeping Charles off his feet to a kosher deli that had received fantastic reviews, dropping hints of perhaps a vacation in some tropical country over the school’s winter holidays, and mussing up his professor’s composure with a heavy bout of petting and kissing.

That wasn’t going to happen.

With a growl that belongs in the prehistoric era, Erik attacks the stack of papers, signature growing increasingly sloppy with each one he dishes out. He’s not even really reading; Emma does that for him, and he trusts her implicitly, mostly because she benefits from his gain. It’s all just a blur of size-12 Times New Roman font, and Erik feels like he’s close to getting carpal tunnel. His normally elegant signature has become more like a schoolboy’s scrawl pre-penmanship classes, a pathetic and illegible scrawl.

By the time he’s done, it’s close to ten minutes to three, and his wrist aches like his head feels. There are ink smudges on his hands and stains on his cuffs, and the dregs in his mug of coffee are cold. The last thing he needs right now is one of his subordinates coming into his office and being overly-chirpy and oblivious to his bad mood.

Which is, of course, exactly what Raven does.

Maybe it’s fate, maybe it’s coincidence or due to some abstract alignment of the planets, but Erik doesn’t care and before she can even open her mouth, Erik is yelling at her to get out.

If this had been anyone else other than his higher-tier subordinates, they would have scrambled out of his office. But this is Raven, who has stuck by him from the beginning and knows what size his briefs are because she’s oftentimes the one stuck with his grocery list. She just arches one eyebrow at him, and jerks a thumb at the door.

  “You’ve got a visitor,” Raven sing-songs. Her voice grates at Erik’s already thin temper.

  “Who?” Erik scowls, resisting the urge to plant his face into his desk. He just wants everyone to go away and leave him alone. The auditors can go stick his pen so far up their asses that it comes out through their mouths for all he cares.

  “I’m not telling,” Raven drawls, but relents when Erik starts growling impatiently, unable to take any nonsense at this point. “Alright, alright. No need to get your Alpha on.”

  “ _Who_?” Erik stops shy of continuing with ‘ _dares to enter my domain_ ’, because quoting megalomanic cartoon characters are jokes never forgotten by his employees. He’s still halfway through that book ‘How to Command Respect’, but he’s pretty sure the author has never been the boss of a semi-criminal business empire that used to be a full-on crime syndicate.

  “Charles Xavier,” Raven is barely able to hide her glee, and then doesn’t bother at all when she observes Erik jump up from his desk like someone just poked him in the ass with a six inch needle.

  “ _Why didn’t you say so?”_ Erik half-yells as he barrels past her and out the door.

Charles can’t be here. It’s too dangerous. A rival gang staking out the building could have seen him coming in, and he’s too noticeable, too gorgeous to be missed. They’ll assume, and they’ll assume correctly, and…and… the possibilities are endless and unthinkable. He’d sooner rip out his own organs than let Charles come to any harm. His mind is whitewashed blank with panic, and he charges blindly into the staff lounge like a dehydrated wildebeest to the watering hole.

And pulls up short so hard and fast, one could practically hear the screech of rubber tyres.

It’s like watching one of his nightmares unfold, as Charles takes the mug of tea from Azazel, who’s just one of the five of his subordinates practically interrogating him. Except they’re not asking him questions about whatever secret operations he’s carrying out in his basement, or any unknown and unsavory affiliates, but questions about Erik in bed, Erik as a boyfriend. They’re looking for blackmail material, and Erik will be damned before he lets them blackmail their way into more paid leave.

In plain sight, in _fucking plain sight_ , is the whiteboard tallying Erik’s character pre-Charles and post-Charles.

  “Ah, Erik!” Azazel (is going to be fired the minute Charles gets home safe and sound) looks up and sounds far too cheerful for a dead man. “So this is your _myshka_!”

  “Call him that again, and I will break every bone in your body,” Erik snarls, striding towards Charles. “ _Twice_.”

He isn’t sure how to approach this—there was never any plan of action, no contingencies for this kind of situation. Charles wasn’t supposed to find about this. He was never supposed to meet his employees, or be drinking tea and chatting with them like they’d been friends forever.

 _You don’t lie to your mate_ , a voice that sounds too much like his mother’s to not be, rings out in his head, nagging and chiding. _You don’t keep secrets from those you profess to love._

  “Charles—“

  “I’m sorry,” is the last thing he expects to hear coming from Charles right now, but there it is, and Erik just stares at him, bemused. “I know I shouldn’t have, but—I know it’s an invasion of your privacy and I—I just couldn’t stand not knowing. I’m sorry, please don’t get mad—”

There is a frightening shine in Charles’ eyes that mean he’s on the verge of tears, and Erik is cupping his face, kissing his brow. That his employees are standing right there is something he’d really rather not acknowledge. He would snap at them to go back to their stations if it didn’t mean dislodging Charles’ vice-like grip around his shoulders. He hears the click of a camera shutter, closes his eyes, takes a deep whiff of Charles’ scent and counts to ten.

  “I’m not mad, Charles, just…” Erik pulls back, guiding his nervous Omega to his feet. He pushes a hand through his hair and glares at his staff over Charles’ shoulder. “It’s better to have this conversation in my office.”

When his employees still don’t scatter (all that’s missing between them is a bucket of popcorn; they’re watching Charles and Erik with barely-suppressed gleeful smirks), Erik half-growls and takes Charles to his office. He shuts the door behind them, and turns around to find Charles gnawing anxiously at his lower lip, pale and flinching when Erik steps into his space.

  “Hey, hey,” Erik soothes, brushing a stray lock of hair from his face. “I’m not mad, _liebling_. I’m just…worried about you.”

Charles’ gaze snaps up, and he’s clearly confused now. “Why?”

This is not a conversation he’d ever planned on having, much less looks forward to. He steers Charles into the leather chair, and kneels in front of him, taking both of the Omega’s smaller, slimmer hands in his much bigger ones. His nerves are railing at him, screaming at him to turn back now, _abort abort abort_.

  “What I do…” Erik takes a deep breath and plunges on. “What I do isn’t strictly legal.”

There’s a painful pause, and even when he thought it would be impossible, Charles has become even paler. “What do you mean? Erik, what are you talking about?”

Erik vaguely recalls someone telling him that the best way to take off a Band-Aid would be to just rip it right off without hesitation. That puts things into perspective.

  “I’m what people like to call a ‘mafia boss’,” it’s an outdated, archaic term, and Erik cringes whenever he hears it. But the shoe fits, there’s no denying that. Not to mention, it’ll give Charles a very clear picture that can’t be rose-tinted. “The office you’re standing in, the name of this company… it’s legal, it’s real. But it exists mostly as a cover.”

  “For what?” Charles looks like he’s going to pass out; his voice is thin and wavering, like a beginner on a tightrope without a safety net.

  “I acquire the businesses of the less legal criminal syndicates that operate in a similar manner,” Erik says bluntly, aware that this is his future with Charles at stake, slipping through his fingers. The pain is like a hot knife stabbing into his breastbone, but Charles deserves to know the truth. Dirty and hateful as it is. “With not-so-legal means. We don’t deal out drugs or traffick sex slaves…but I’ve killed people, Charles.”

There is blood on his hands that won’t fade no matter how hard he scrubs, or how much he polishes himself with fancy suits and gold watches. This blood stained his past, and now it will stain his future, depriving him of the one person he’s ever wanted to keep close to his heart.

The one person he’ll never have now.

  “Do you…” Charles takes a shuddery breath. “Do you enjoy it?”

Erik frowns. “Enjoy what?”

  “Enjoy killing people,” Charles whispers so faintly, Erik has to strain to hear it, even with his heightened Alpha senses.

  “ _What?”_ Erik leans back, incredulous. “Of course not—I’d have to be some kind of sick—“

  “Psychopath?” Charles offers with a weak smile that comes across more as a grimace. “Yeah. That’s what I was worried about.”

  “Charles,” Erik cups the Omega’s face in his hands, concerned by how cold his skin feels, and how pale he looks. He never wants Charles to be frightened, least of all by _him_. “I don’t enjoy killing people. But it’s a necessity, especially when what they do isn’t… nice.”

Charles doesn’t say anything, just closes his eyes. Erik mourns the loss of not seeing the expressions that are always so clearly portrayed in them. It would make this so much easier, knowing what Charles is thinking. Thinking about this, about him. _Of_ him.

  “I would never hurt you,” Erik says urgently, desperately. “I never want to see you hurt. That’s why I didn’t tell you.”

  “Because you thought I’d run in the other direction?” Charles smiles mirthlessly. “Or because if you told me, you’d have to kill me?”

  “What? No!” Well, it’s actually a yes to the former, but a definite no to the latter. “I didn’t want to tell you because then you’d be exposed and vulnerable!”

  “To what?” Charles wrinkles his nose. “Your subordinates? They seem nice.”

  “Well, them too, but—that’s not the point!” Erik huffs. “The reason why I’m always careful about where we go together, is because I’m afraid of who might see you with me. They’d know you’re my weak spot, and they’d try to get me through you!”

Charles’ smile looks a little brighter now. “I’m your weak spot?”

  “That’s really not something to be happy about, you do realize.”

  “Erik, do you love me?” the question comes out of nowhere, incongruous with their current situation.

But Erik is familiar with the machinations in Charles’ head; how he bites his lower lip when he’s nervous, how he always pushes his hair back with his left hand when he’s self-conscious, how the insecurities of being told he’s the exact opposite of the ideal Omega has been bred into his bones despite his outward indifference.

  “I do,” Erik seizes Charles’ face once more, bringing their noses so close, they might as well be breathing each other’s air. “I love you. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  “Then promise me,” Charles’ breath hitches in his chest, and he looks dangerously close to tears once more. “promise me you won’t do anything rash. Like push me away because you think it’ll keep me safe.”

How did—

  “I can tell you were thinking about it,” Charles says, voice thick with emotion. “Don’t you dare, Erik. Don’t you dare.”

  “I can’t lose you,” Erik says urgently. “If you’re hurt—if you get killed because of me, I could never forgive myself. I’d sooner kill myself to join you in the afterlife.”

  “Romantic,” Charles chuckles weakly. “But I don’t appreciate the notion.”

And Erik knows that for now, they’re okay. They’ll be okay. They’ll make it work.

Now if he could just find some way to get rid of those slacking eavesdroppers on his payroll.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It doesn't gel very well, does it


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For CleverBast: "Can we see when Erik finds out that Charles is pregnant for the first time? Maybe some mutual angst about Charles thinking Erik doesn't want the baby, and Erik thinking that he's to dirty for Charles?"
> 
> Hope I fulfilled your expectations!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNINGS: Attempt to forcibly induce abortion, mentions of miscarriage, partner abuse/physical abuse

Pissing on a stick in the cramped, dingy bathroom (that probably violates a six and twenty thousand hygiene regulations) at the back of a convenience store is quite possibly the most undignified thing Charles Francis Xavier has ever done. It smells like centuries old urine, decomposing fecal matter, mold and despair. How amusing it is to note that the latter is exactly how he’s feeling right now. He waits the directed two minutes, and watches with a sort of detached horror as the little plastic stick declares his fate.

At the age of twenty and eight years, mated for just shy of one month, he’s 95% likely to be pregnant with Erik’s child. To bolster that 5% margin, he buys the first thing he can grab off the refrigerated beverage aisle (a gallon of organic soy bean milk – it’s like the cosmos are looking down at him and laughing hysterically) and as many Omega Male Pregnancy Tests he can grab with one hand.

Because he can’t stand the idea of pissing five—no, eight times in that dank shithole of a convenience store toilet, he marches back to the apartment he shares with Erik as of two months ago. He takes great care to double-bag his purchases, lest one of Erik’s subordinates looking out for him see it and relay their suspicions back to Charles’ mate and bring him running home three hours before he’s supposed to. His pace is brisk, his expression stubbornly blank; so long as there exists that 5% chance he’s not pregnant, he’ll exploit it for all it’s worth.

Eight pregnancy tests and one aching bladder later, Charles is locked up in the toilet and considering drowning himself in the magnificent porcelain bathtub that doubles as a jacuzzi (the first time he was acquainted with it, he declared his intentions to divorce Erik and marry it instead. The Alpha wasn’t half as amused as his employees were when they heard about it—to this day, the Charles/Jacuzzi Bathtub story is still a running inside joke). Then he sits up in an abrupt moment of clear-headedness and frowns.

Why is he upset about this? So he’s pregnant with Erik’s child. They might not have gotten around to talking about children (Angel and Raven would say they’re still in the honeymoon period; Alex and Azazel have placed bets on who’s going down first when it ends—the odds are in Charles’ favor, apparently), but that didn’t mean they’d planned on never talking about it, or never having them. It’s a milestone in a relationship, isn’t it? It’s not something…bad, right? Breaking the news to Erik will be a hurdle in a category of its own. It’s one thing to accept that there is a future, a life that will be shaped by his and Erik’s hands, growing inside his body. Given a little time to get over the shock, he’s certain he will love a child of his and Erik’s blood, love made corporeal. But would Erik be so accepting and offer the same unconditional love? It frightens him to think of the possible reactions.

What if Erik gets mad? What if he doesn’t want children, and demands that Charles aborts it (he wouldn’t—couldn’t kill something, someone so precious that hasn’t had a chance to prove itself)? What if he divorces Charles and finds another Omega, one that won’t get pregnant unless he says so, one that’s more… ideal?

He shudders and curls into a ball in the corner of the bathroom, feeling cold despite the two layers he’s wearing. He folds his hands over his abdomen, where there’s no noticeable changes, nothing to suggest that he’s carrying Erik’s child. His resolve hardens as reality bleeds into his perspective. It’s not just about him anymore, it’s about this child that’s already loved by one parent, even if the other might not feel the same.

* * *

Erik knows something is wrong the moment he walks through the front door.

The air is too still, like no one is home. It reminds him too much of his life pre-Charles (fucking whiteboards and his ridiculous employees’ influence), when there wasn’t anything to look forward to in going home, when this was really just more a house. He slides out of his shoes, pads through the entryway and pauses at the living room. Charles is curled up on the couch, burrowing into a…nest (?) of pillows and cushions. Only his hair is visible, a tuft of brown sticking out of the duvet he’s sleeping under, and a toe—that vanishes back under the duvet as Erik watches in baffled amusement. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to react. Is he meant to jump Charles and tackle him into maybe two rounds of lovemaking before dinner (not that he minds…)? Or is he supposed to snuggle down and doze off with him (which isn’t that unappealing either)?

But there’s something off about the atmosphere, and his Alpha instincts are on edge, wary of something wrong about this situation. His hindbrain niggles at his consciousness in warning, even as he kneels by the pile that is his mate and lifts up the duvet to slide in behind him, curving his body to spoon around Charles.

  “Mmphgh,” Charles mumbles drowsily. “Erik?”

He kisses one smooth, alabaster cheek and absently wonders what happened to the rosy tint that is usually there. “Yes, Schatz?”

  “Welcome home,” Charles yawns, and turns so he can bury his nose in Erik’s scent gland, drawing a deep lungful of his scent. Erik scents him in return, delighting in the fact that this sweet, warm and cleansingly pure scent is all his.

  “Mm,” Erik noses at his ear, smiling. “How was your day?”

  “I should be asking you that,” Charles kisses Erik’s jaw, his lips soft against Erik’s jaw. “Mine was boring.”

  “Nothing about you is boring,” Erik grins, tilting Charles’ chin up so he can kiss him properly. They wind up having a little too much fun feeling each other up, but then they lapse back into conversation. “How’s Moira?”

  “Still a little afraid of you,” Charles eyes him in bland amusement. “She has her suspcions, you know.”

  “Everyone does,” Erik shrugs. “They see my smile and they immediately think of the mentally unstable. And not in a nice way.”

  “You have a lovely smile,” Charles says fiercely, and he looks like he’s about to follow up that declaration with something else, but it peters out and the fizzling embers are still lurking in his bright blue eyes, like words that died just on the tip of his tongue. The expression looks strange on him, the Omega who always spoke his mind with a passion. It reminds Erik that they’re on the living room floor, on a bed of pillows filched from the bedroom and cushions from the couch.

  “Charles, is something… wrong?” Erik asks tentatively, touching his cheekbone with a gentleness that would have been completely out of character for him a year ago.

Charles stiffens; it’s a tiny reaction, one that would go unnoticed if the observer had not spent months paying attention to every detail, every motion that played across this face that belonged in a painting. The faintest tension running through the body pressed up against his own, the changed in the shade of his eyes. Charles wasn’t nervous per se, but he was some kind of unhappy.

  “You know you can tell me anything, right?” Erik tries to keep the anxiety out of his voice; it made him sound weak and feeble, like some desperate half-rate Alpha trying to hold on to a mate who found him unworthy.

  “I know,” Charles sighs, dipping his head to nestle against Erik’s collarbone. His breath was warm against Erik’s skin, and his hair smelled like the shampoo in their bathroom. It was always funny how the simplest changes made Erik so much more content: their bathroom, their bedroom. Simple but beautiful things.

He lets the matter drop, because he can hear Charles’ soft snoring kicking up like the purr of a well-fed cat basking in the afternoon sunlight on a brick wall. The Omega’s bottom lip looks so chewed, it might as well have been tenderised by a mallet. There are shadows under his eyes, and a worried crease between his eyebrows.

Erik kisses the wrinkle there, and tried to smooth it out with his thumb. He just hopes that whatever Charles is keeping inside, it isn’t important.

* * *

Charles doesn’t know who’s on his detail for the day, but he hopes a roundabout car ride and a slip into the mall during lunch hour is enough to take them off his tail. Because this is something he really doesn’t want getting back to Erik quite so soon, at least not until he’s figured out exactly how he’s going to break the news to him without breaking something else. Like their bond, for instance.

He twists his fingers in the hem of the paper-thin hospital gown, chewing his bottom lip until it’s stinging and red and raw. The doctor enters the room, holding the test results in her hand and a kindly, understanding smile on her face. She’s a Beta, as most doctors in this particular field are.

  “Well, Mr. Xavier,” she gives him a smile that’s anticipatorily half-apologetic. “It looks like you’re about five weeks along. Amost exactly, I’d say.”

  “I see,” he says, sounding far away to himself. “That’s…is the baby healthy?”

Her face softens. “I’ll need to do an ultrasound and a few more tests, but from what I’ve seen of your bloodwork and urine, you look to be in good shape. That means your baby likely is, too. You might want to get in more time for sleep though.”

He looks at her, confused, and she gestures at the skin under her eyes. “Does your Alpha know? If he does, I’m sure he’ll be a lot more understanding about letting you get more rest.”

  “No,” Charles squeezes his eyes shut. He did wish Erik was here. But he’d come here with the wild hope that an ultrasound picture of their children in his womb would deter Erik from breaking their bond. That it would at least appeal to his softer side.

  “I see,” the doctor sounds a little disappointed, but most sympathetic. “Well, if you want, there are perfectly safe options to—“

  “No!” he says so abruptly and so viciously that he frightens her. “I’m keeping my baby.”

The doctor recovers enough to give him a look that borders on proud, and gets the ultrasound machine ready for him. A icy cold gel is slathered all over his lower abdomen, and she firmly presses a weird-looking wand to the skin there. A machine is turned on, and then—that’s—

That’s a heartbeat. It’s muffled, and sounds like a wet fish flopping against a wooden floor, but it’s beautiful and it’s there. There’s a little someone growing inside Charles, half-Erik, half him. He imagines a little girl or a little boy with Erik’s auburn hair and his eyes, and Erik’s wide toothy grin. He can see Erik adoring their child, spoiling him or her, skipping work just to see them more often. It’s a fantasy as beautiful as this moment, and it’s just as out of reach as a dream.

Charles swallows the urge to weep, covering his face with both hands as he tilts his head backwards to keep the tears from falling. He wants Erik to be here so badly, to have him here by his side and feeling just as lost in wonderment and joy as he is. A soft, warm hand gives his shoulder a brief squeeze, and then hands him a printout and a bundle of pamphlets on how to take care of himself for the upcoming months. He takes them with a blank look, and feels like he’s walking somewhere between Heaven and Hell as he heads home, forgetting to take note that Erik’s subordinates might be watching.

So it’s a surprise that tastes like lemon and bittergourd at the back of his mouth, which goes dry, when he comes home to find Erik sitting on the couch. His countenance is still and stony, unreadable as the grave and just as ominous. It makes Charles already-uneasy stomach churn, and the urge to vomit is hovering at the edges of his mind.

  “Erik?” it frankly surprises him that his voice is steady, calm as he drops his keys into the dish on the kitchen counter. “What are you doing home so early?”

  “Darwin told me you tried to evade him and Alex this afternoon,” Erik says, deceptively calm. There’s a tightening at the corners of his eyes that betray what Charles perceives to be anger. “Do you know how worried I was?”

Erik is still wearing his suit, and his hair looks like he’s just gone through the bender from having his hands run through it too many times. There’s a haunted look about him, and Charles’ heart cracks a bit. When Erik finds out the truth, there won’t be anyone worrying about him like this anymore.

  “Where were you?” Erik demands, getting up and cornering Charles against the kitchen counter, so close that his breath is hot against Charles’ lips, like a flame licking at his skin and threatening to burn him alive if he tells anything but the truth.

  “I…went to see someone,” it’s not a lie, exactly. He did go to see the doctor. It’s just the context that’s lacking. And it’s exactly that lacking context that makes Erik even angrier.

  “Who?”

  “It’s no one that you know,” Charles says quickly, mistakenly assuming that this will defuse the situation. But Erik seizes his wrist, grip tight enough to bruise, and his growl reveberates through Charles’ body.

  “Who, Charles? Tell me before I send one of my employees to find out and break their legs.”

  “Don’t you dare pull that kind of shit on me, Erik Lehnsherr,” Charles shoves at Erik ineffectually with his free hand, but Erik’s words have frustrated him; he’s told him time and again to respect his privacy, to just let him have some time alone (more often as of late), but Erik never seems capable of grasping the idea of ‘me time’.

  “You are my mate,” Erik snarls. “Do you understand what that means? I would sooner kill you, and then myself before I see you running off into the sunset with some other filthy mongrel Alpha!”

_Wait, what?_

  “Erik—“

  “You will not meet with this person again,” Erik’s voice is barely above a growl, a warning and a threat rolled up in one. “I will hunt them down, and I will—“

  “Erik, for fuck’s sake! I’m pregnant!”

Erik freezes, and just when Charles thought that the fire couldn’t get any hotter, that it was doused, Erik tackles him to the ground, spitting flames. He presses a hand over Charles’ stomach, where their child their child _what is Erik doing_ —   “You will get rid of it,” Erik roars. “I will not have my Omega bear a bastard child—“

He presses harder on Charles' stomach, and Charles is screaming, screaming so loudly he feels like his head is bursting and he’s crying and trying to kick Erik off because _that’s their child Erik is trying to get rid of_ —

Then the pressure is gone, and Charles hazily realizes as he chokes on his own sobs that he must have yelled that last part; Erik is backed up against the cupboards, stark horror on his face. He looks like someone just shot his mother in front of him all over again, and he’s barely breathing.

  “…what?” is all he manages to say. Charles curls up in a fetal position, consciousness warning him to keep away from Erik when he’s so volatile and unpredictable right now, Omega instinct demanding that he comfort his Alpha.

As far as Charles is concerned, his Alpha just tried to force him into having a miscarriage, so his Omega instinct can go take a flying leap into the sun.

  “It’s yours, you colossal ass,” Charles is still crying, and his voice hitches like he’s hiccuping. The fear is still there, giving him goosebumps and making the hair on the back of his neck stand as he comes to terms with the fact that his Alpha just tried to force him into having a miscarriage. He thought Charles was having an affair. He’s incredulous, shocked, and frightened. Not just for himself, but for the child Erik just tried to kill. “You… just stay away from me. Stay away from me, Erik.”

* * *

Erik can’t sleep. After this afternoon’s…debacle, Erik has been made to book a hotel room for the night (and for the foreseeable future). He can’t stand the idea of waking up in the middle of the night and finding that there’s no warm body clinging to him like an octopus, no soothing Omega scent to ground him in the present.

Charles is pregnant with his child. He still can’t wrap his mind around it, that there’s a tiny being made out of his and Charles’ genes, growing inside his Omega’s womb.

It’s not like Erik has never thought about having children; he’s fantasized having Charles all round and glowing with his child, fecund and fertile. When he wasn’t thinking about putting his hands all over a heavily pregnant Charles, who would look so fucking sexy gravid with his child, he liked to imagine what a children with a cocktail of their genes would look like. Would they have Charles’ cerulean eyes, as bright and intense as sunlight through a sapphire? Would they have the misfortune of inheriting Erik’s purportedly ‘serial killer’ smile?

Then he’d go out and shoot someone at point blank, and realize that he’s already lucky enough to have Charles as his mate. To have children with him would be pushing it.

He looks at his hands, and all he sees is blood and sorrow. How can he hold a child with hands like these?

* * *

It’s been a month, and Erik still hasn’t come home.

Yes, Charles still flinches whenever he hears someone shuffling in the corridor outside the door, and yes, he might have nightmares about Erik actually succeeding in making him miscarry before he has the chance to even tell Erik the truth, of lying on the kitchen floor with blood pooling between his legs and his Alpha standing there, not trying to help him save their child. His Omega instincts (the fucking annoying things; if it wasn’t for his current condition, he’d be drowning them in alcohol) are railing at him to seek out his mate, and to find comfort in his scent and arms. A black turtleneck as been Erik’s substitute at night, but the smell is fading, and with it so is Charles’ spirits.

He couldn't tell if Erik was happy or upset about having a child, and he weighs his options. He could pack up now and leave, before Erik comes back (if he ever comes back) and disappear with their child. He could stay, and face Erik’s reaction, be it bad or (the chances are fading to decimal points now) good. He has his duffel bag open, and while in his head he acknowledges the pros of leaving now… he just can’t do this. Even if he leaves, he’ll need closure somehow. Be it in a month, or when their child is born of twenty years from now. He nurses a mug of tea in his hands, despondent. It seems like their courtship and honeymoon was a lifetime ago, and not two months.

The knock at the door makes him jump, spilling tea on the counter. He gets up to open it, thinking it’s probably Angel or Raven come to relay news about Erik (“working, working, being a slave driver, working”) and try to comfort him.

The refusal to receive their company dies on his lips as he opens the door to find Erik standing in the threshold, looking infinitely worse for wear and like a soldier who’s come home from the war, not unscathed.

  “I’m sorry,” Erik blurts out, not looking Charles in the eye. His posture is genuinely apologetic, eyes down on his shoes. The pose is also predominantly Omegan, so doing this must really be hitting Erik’s Alpha instinct hard.

  “For what?” the vitriol is something Charles can’t help; it just comes pouring out. “Accusing me of cheating on you? Not trusting me? For trying to kill our child?”

  “All of the above,” Erik’s shoulders sag even further. Now he just looks like a dog that got kicked when it was already down. But Charles really, truly cannot help himself. He’s being spiteful and petty and mean, but he’d be lying if he said the guilt on Erik’s face didn’t make the agony of the last few weeks feel less taxing. In some sick, terrible way, it makes him feel better to know that he’s not the only one suffering.

  “Why?” Charles sighs, rubbing his forehead with the back of one hand. “Why did you have to—“

  “Because I love you,” Erik says, frank and candid. There is no self-righteousness, no justification in his voice, just honest self-reproach.

Damn him. Charles’ heart softens; he knows Erik came from a bad place, where people turned on each other at the blink of an eye, where relationships like theirs are as rare as finding a diamond in a pig slop.

It’s no excuse for what he did, or tried to do, but Charles can’t really stay mad when Erik is hanging is head like a child being scolded, and so he pulls Erik into his arms and buries his face into the crook of his neck, inhaling his Alpha’s scent. A warmth settles back into his gut, soothing and calming his inner Omega, even if his subconscious is still much more wary and on guard.

  “I love you, too,” Charles murmurs as Erik’s arms slowly come up around him, as if embracing a wild animal. “I missed you.”

  “I’m sorry,” Erik says again, his mouth at Charle’s hairline. “I just… I’m sorry.”

They stay like that in the entryway for who knows how long, but eventually they retreat to the couch and snuggle up, Erik still in his suit and coat, and Charles’ tea going cold on the counter.

  “I’m…” Erik swallows thickly. “I think you should stay with Raven, until I can sort something out.”

Charles isn’t sure he’s breathing. “What do you mean?”

  “You shouldn’t be around me,” Erik isn’t looking at him. “You or…or the baby.”

Charles grabs the lapels of his coat and forces him into making eye contact, feeling like something is being wrestled out of his control and he’s panicking. “Erik, what are you talking about?”

  “It’s not safe to be around me,” Erik says harshly, looking vaguely ashamed. “After what I tried to do to you—after what I’ve done. Charles, I’ve killed people.”

  “I thought we went over this a long time ago,” Charles says flatly. “Erik, you don’t get to cop out now.”

  “I’m not!” Erik glares at him. “I’m just trying to keep you safe! From me!”

  “You misunderstood, you made a mistake,” Charles doesn’t feel good about brushing that incident aside so easily, but when his Alpha is trying to push him away for his sake, it’s something he can overlook. His inner Omega is in a frenzy. “Erik, I need you. Our child will need you.”

Erik looks away again, and Charles suspects that the glimmer in his eyes is the beginning of tears. Oh, good grief.

  “Erik, please,” Charles touches his cheek, pleading now. “Don’t be a bloody martyr and sacrifice our happiness for something so stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid,” Erik says harshly. “When I bonded you, you became a target. But I won’t have another person I love vulnerable and targeted because of me.”

Erik _loves_ their child. That’s really all Charles needs to hear.

  “You idiot,” Charles smiles fondly, flicking Erik’s forehead before kissing it. “You absolute idiot.”

Erik scowls at him.

  “If you’re going to insist on pushing me away,” Charles continues, mercilessly bringing out the big guns. “I’m going to tell your whole office that you’re crying. And then I’m going to tie your cock in a knot, chop it off and throw it to Azazel’s dogs.”

The supposed Alpha in the relationship gives him a look that says he doesn’t believe he can follow through on his threat; Charles just arches one eyebrow and takes out his phone and snaps a picture of Erik’s watery expression.

The rest of the afternoon is spent wrestling for the device and having slow, sweet make-up sex on the floor of their living room.

* * *

When Charles is five months pregnant, he relents and lets Erik follow him to his ultrasound appointment. The Alpha has been driving him nuts, and frankly if a look at their baby inside him will shut up his overprotective instincts for half an hour, then by all means.

The Beta doctor is there again, and she recognizes Charles. She gives him a knowing smile as she leads the couple into the room, and sets up the machine. Charles has to put a hand on Erik’s chest to calm him down when the coldness of the gel slicked on his noticeably distended swollen abdomen makes him hiss.

  “Here we go…” the doctor is either oblivious or used to intimidating Alphas. “Oh!”

Charles jerks upright, disconnecting the image in his panic. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Just sit back down and let me see it again, just to be sure,” there’s no undercurrent of pity or anything bad in her voice, just curious anticipation. The feed comes back, and then Charles sees a grainy image of—

  “Twins!” she declares. Erik makes a noise like a cat being strangled, and is very fortunate that the first thing Charles finds in his range to grab and throw at him is just a harmless tissue box.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The much-desired kidnapping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very rushed, I admit. I also did say I wasn't going to post for a while, but I couldn't resist and studying is boring. Nothing quite like good procrastination.

The first time Charles is kidnapped, it’s barely a week after he comes to terms with what Erik does for a living.  If he wasn’t so scared stiff of his captors (looking back, he regards them with disdain for their lack of imagination in wearing ski masks and wielding China-made handguns—if you’re going to kill an American/British citizen, you could at least kill him with a Beretta), he could practically hear Erik yelling “ _I fucking told you so”_ in his mind’s ear.

He follows Erik’s instructions: don’t draw unnecessary attention to yourself by mouthing off (“I do _not_ mouth off—“ “Charles, you make a living by mouthing off, only with scientific jargon.”), don’t submit in any way, cover your scent gland as best you can. He gets out of it relatively unscathed, with just a few bruises and some scrapes from being knocked around a little. Erik unleashes the full might of his wrath from being kept anxious and fearful for Charles’ life for a grand total of two hours. His captors are not quite so fortunate as their captive, and three years later the police close the case on their whereabouts, unsolved.

He gets kidnapped a few more times over the years, despite Erik’s constant increase on his security detail, and the worst by far is the time when Victor Creed decided he wanted a taste of Erik Lehnsherr’s newly-bonded Omega mate. Charles was molested, beaten and very nearly raped; Victor gets the webbing between his fingers and toes sliced, his tibias smashed beyond repair with a sledgehammer, his eyeballs gouged out and is hung by his collarbones until he bleeds to death. Erik wanted to do worse, but all Charles wanted was to go home and recuperate in the safety of a nest of blankets and pillows that smelled like his Alpha.

Eventually, the one thing Erik didn’t want happening to Charles, happens: Charles gets used to it.

* * *

This time, he’s pregnant with David, and he’s with Erik at the bank. Pietro and Wanda are at the daycare, no doubt making their fourth teacher in just as many _weeks_ tear her own hair out. They’re unruly and definitely their Alpha sire’s children: they don’t take ‘no’ for an answer unless it’s from their parents, and they don’t take insults lying down.

“Why do you even need a security deposit box, anyway?” Charles complains, shuffling and pouting. He can’t help it; he’s six months pregnant, his ankles are swollen and he has the perpetual urge to piss. If the toilet seat was padded, he’d be on it all the damn time. “Doesn’t our house qualify as one?”

“Because I made this particular deposit back when it was legal,” Erik says airily, slipping one arm around Charles’ waist so the Omega leans heavily on him.

Charles gives him a look. “Is this going to result in us having to make a discreet getaway again? Because I have to remind you that a six-months pregnancy bump is anything but discreet.”

“It’s sexy,” Erik busses a kiss to his hairline.

Charles opens his mouth to disagree, but then a Beta is calling Erik by his surname and guiding them along to a private booth with the steel box in hand. A curtain separates them from prying eyes, and Erik slips the key into the box and opens the lid. Charles peers around him (over his shoulder is too much, even on tippy-toes) and squints.

Inside the box that had Charles on painfully swelling and aching ankles for the last thirty minutes, is… a baggied carving knife covered in dried blood. It looks like a relic from a century-old murder scene, and Charles gives Erik a look.

“This was legal when you made the deposit,” he deadpans.

“Well, no one asked any questions,” Erik slips the baggie into his briefcase, and replaces the item with a paltry bundle of cash. He's going to plant the knife in the safe behind the copycat Monet painting in Luciano Delgrande's bedroom, so that when the police make the raid (after they're tipped off by an anonymous source, of course) on his house next week, they'll find him in custody of damning evidence with regards to the cold case of his brother's murder quite some years ago. It will get the meddling brown-noser who's gotten too greedy for his own good off Erik's turf.

“Only because you paid them not to,” Charles sighs, allowing his idiotic husband to guide him from the room. “I can’t believe you had me come along with you just for that.”

“You’re the one who wanted to come with me,” Erik reminds him.

“ ‘It’ll be quick, Charles,’” Charles parrots. “ ‘Just a quick in and out, Charles.’”

Erik rolls his eyes and nips at his Omega’s bond bite, making him blush.

“Now we can go and get whatever nonsensical craving it is you want,” Erik smirks. “What, peanut butter on pickles with—“

Gunfire cracks through the air like lightning, and is followed by a nervous shout of:

“ _Everyone down on the ground!_ ”

“For fuck’s sake,” Erik mutters, automatically steering his Omega in the opposite direction.

“Hey, we got some runners over here!” a reckless-sounding teenager in a clown mask pops out of fucking nowhere and nearly gives Charles a heart attack. He waves a shotgun at them, and Erik has half a mind to just grab it from him. He could and he would, if it didn’t mean risking Charles getting caught in the tussle.

“Come on, get your bitch whore back in the front,” the teenager sneers.

 _Now_ , Erik is pissed.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Charles puts a hand on Erik’s forearm, smiling pleasantly. Erik knows that smile; that smile is nobody’s friend. “Not until we’re sure of what we’re dealing with.”

As the teenager hustles them back to the front where all the other robbers are rounding up the hostages and threatening the tellers, Erik gives him a sideways look. “You mean prepubescent teenagers who probably thought it would be inconsequential fun to just rob a bank on a Friday afternoon?”

“Admittedly not their finest ideas,” Charles shrugs. “Folly of youth?”

Erik opens his mouth to give a snarky reply to that excuse, but is interrupted by the blare of an alarm going off. “Oh, great. Someone found the alarm button. Fantastic.”

“Shut up!” the kid clocks Erik on the back of the head with the butt of his gun, infuriating the Alpha even further. Charles grips his wrist, anchoring him.

“Don’t do anything rash,” Charles warns him.

“Doesn’t this situation strike you as odd?” Erik scowls at him, rubbing the bump forming at the back of his head. “Normally I’m the one telling you not to do anything stupid.”

“Refreshing, isn’t it?” Charles smiles, brushing the hair out of Erik’s eyes and smoothing it back in place. “Now you know how frustrated I feel.”

The teenager comes back, holding a different gun this time with the grip of an amateur (Erik seriously doubts the safety is off). His voice is high-pitched with nerves and cracks like a pubescent adolescent. “Get moving! You two are going to be our hostages!”

“What, you couldn’t find a weak little granny to pick on?” Erik grouses, keeping his arm firmly around Charles’ waist. Charles elbows him in the ribs.

“Move!” the teenager shrieks, waving the gun and _finally_ clicking off the safety.

Erik gives him an unimpressed look. “Did you just _accidentally_ take off the safety?”

“Erik, I love you, but for the love of all the pleasures your dick gives me, I’d vastly prefer it if you could just shut up for a few minutes and not mouth off to the nice little child waving the Sig at us,” Charles snaps.

“Yeah, listen to your little b—hey! I’m sixteen!” the kid squawks.

Marvelous. Sixteen and already robbing banks with guns he doesn’t know how to use.

“Just get out there already!” the kid shoves them out a back door and into a black van (and here Erik thought it could not get more cliched. Nothing screams ‘robbery getaway vehicle’ like a nondescript black van).

Erik’s hand shoots out to stop Charles from making a nasty tumble to the floor of the van’s back, and he props his Omega upright just as the kid slams the door shut. They hear him climbing into the passenger seat with someone else at the wheel, and look up to find three others wearing varying renditions of clown masks, staring back at them. Erik names them Grouchy, Happy, and Stupid.

“I don’t know about you, but I find that ski masks tend to be less…creepy,” Charles shudders, unconsciously burrowing into the side of his mate.

“Just pipe down,” Grouchy says, voice muffled and weary. “We’ll let you guys go once we get away safely.”

“Are you crazy? What if they talk?” Stupid argues.

“And say what?” Grouchy snaps. “That they got held hostage by a bunch of clowns?”

“At least this one is marginally more intelligent than I gave them all credit for,” Erik mutters.

“I say we ransom them,” Happy declares, sounding pleased with himself. “I mean, look at that Alpha. He’s wearing a suit, so he’s got to be loaded, right?”

Erik grins.

“Fuck, man,” Stupid cringes. “That’s one fucked-up smile.”

“I find it rather charming,” Charles says primly, and kisses Erik’s cheek.

The three teenagers make gagging noises.

The screech of a police siren startles them all, and the teenagers begin to panic like headless chickens, shitting themselves going mad with fear.

“Tell them to go away,” Grouchy gets their head on straight and yells at Erik. “Tell them we’ll shoot you both if they don’t stop chasing us!”

Erik arches one eyebrow, and Charles snorts.

“Really? You want _me_ to tell them that _I_ am being held at gunpoint?” Erik drawls.

The police siren blares again, and Grouchy loses his patience. “I don’t fucking care! Just do it!”

He throws a megaphone at Erik, who catches it one-handed despite how bumpy the ride is getting to be.

“I’d tell you to buckle up, but…” Erik mumbles to Charles as he gets to his feet. Charles gives him a disdainful look, gripping the side of the van with one hand and putting the other on the curve of his belly.

Stupid throws open a door, and the blare of the sirens gets louder. Erik steps up with the megaphone, takes one look outside at the police car tailing them, and bursts out laughing hysterically.

Charles rolls his eyes; he knows exactly what’s so funny.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Summers,” Erik barely manages to say without chuckling. He snorts and starts laughing again.

“What the fuck!” Happy yells. “You know the police? What are you, an Inspector?”

“What the fuck!” another voice yells distantly. “What the hell are you doing, Lehnsherr!”

“Believe me, this is entirely against my will,” Erik smirks.

“How the fuck do you know the cops?” Grouchy shoves at Erik. “Tell them to get lost, or we’ll put a fucking bullet in your head!”

Erik repeats that to Summers, who gives him the finger.

“Go ahead!” Summers yells. “Do us all a favor and kill the bastard!”

Charles kicks the other door open so he can get a look at the cop telling a bunch of amateur bank robbers to kill his mate, and levels a _look_ at Scott Summers.

Scott looks over at the heavily pregnant Omega giving him the look of unpleasant death, and pales. Erik, on the other hand, scowls. How is it that his Omega commands more fear and respect than he does?

“What the fuck is going on?” the robbers collectively complain.

“Good job, you idiots!” Scott tells them over the loudhailer. “You just took Erik fucking Lehnsherr as your fucking hostage!”

The three blanch, and it seems that their driver has picked up on the conversation as well, because the van comes to a screeching halt.

“Ah,” Erik throws the megaphone at Scott’s windshield and holds a hand out to his mate. “That was fun. Wasn’t it, _liebling_?”

The police come swarming around the van and grabbing the would-be robbers, shouting their Miranda rights as they handcuff them. They all avoid Erik and Charles like the plague.

“Next time you want to have ‘fun’,” Charles grumbles but accepts Erik’s help getting up and off the van, awkward and somewhat cumbersome with his belly so heavy with child. “Bring the twins. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it far more than I ever will.”

Scott Summers, recently promoted and always trying to nab Erik redhanded, walks up to them and scowls at the Alpha. “What the fuck, Lehnsherr?”

“Eloquent as usual, I see,” Erik smirks. “Have you invested in a dictionary like I suggested at our last meeting?”

Scott flips him off and squints at Charles. “Knocked up again?”

Erik snarls; barbs at him are fine, but he won’t let anyone else insult Charles. The Omega rolls his eyes and pats Erik’s arm.

“Lovely to see you again, Mr. Summers,” Charles musters up a congenial smile. “Pity about the circumstances. But yes, I’m twenty-six weeks along, if you’re asking.”

“Congrats, I suppose,” whatever insult Scott had at the ready dies in the face of the dazzling bright light that is Charles’ natural charm. “How’re the twins?”

“They’re doing great, thank you for asking,” Charles beams. “How’s Miss Grey? I assume you two are still…?”

“I’m thinking about proposing, yeah,” Scott actually fucking _blushes_ as Erik looks on, incredulous.

“That’s wonderful,” Charles says warmly. “I’m sure she’ll be only too glad to accept.”

“You think so?”

Erik rolls his eyes and drags his Omega away, half his mind on sticking his tongue out at Scott over his shoulder.

“No need to be so rude, Erik,” Charles tuts. “I was only making polite conversation.”

“Unnecessarily polite conversation,” Erik corrects. “May I remind you, Charles, that Scott Summers wants my head on a pike at the castle walls?”

“Being nice never hurt anyone,” Charles sniffs, waddling to keep up with Erik’s long legs.

“Except yourself,” Erik sighs, slipping an arm around Charles’ waist and slowing down his pace. “You know I don’t like you talking to Scott Summers.”

“Don't be so melodramatic,” Charles rolls his eyes. “He's a police officer, Erik. At the very most, all he can do is Taser you.”

Erik just mutters something German under his breath and leads his Omega home, praying that no one else tries anything stupid until he gets Charles into bed for some well-warranted rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I rushed.


End file.
